World Scientific Research

Objectives: the current study aims to investigate the correlation between vitamin D deficiency and respiratory tract (URT) infection in hospitalized patients. Subjects and methods: a cross sectional observational study was conducted among patients with URT infections admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Results: From 30 ICU respiratory infected patients who were included in the study, results showed that all patients’ serum vitamin D levels were below normal, where 3.3% of patients showed a relative insufficiency and 96.7% represent deficiency. This study included 16 females and 14 males. The results showed that deficiency in females appears to be more than in males with a mean of 15.42 nmol/L and 16.nmo/L respectively. Variable readings of serum vit. D level appeared with the various microorganisms. The lowest level of the vitamin was found with Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Ataphylococcus aureus respectively. In addition, the present study showed that the level of WBCS is inversely proportional to the level of vit. D in most patients. Moreover, patients who were on combination therapy of antibiotic and corticosteroid showed lowest mean of serum vit. D level than patients who were on antibiotic or corticosteroid alone. Conclusion: the present study showed that all patients with respiratory tract infection in ICU have either vit D insufficiency or deficiency. Moreover, there was an inverse relationship between vit D and WBCs level. This may be attributed to the role of vit D in immunity, so vit D may be recommended to be prescribed to avoid further deficiency and to boost the immunity in patient with respiratory tract infection.